A dairy farmer from Spruce Creek, Huntingdon County was voted onto the Penn State Board of Trustees on Thursday by delegates from Pennsylvania’s various agricultural and rural life organizations.

View full sizeNittany Lion Shrine at Penn State University CHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News, 2011

Abe Harpster will join the board in July.

Delegates also re-elected incumbent agricultural representative Keith Eckel, a produce farmer from Clarks Summit, who has emerged as a leading voice on the many issues on the board in recent years.

Eckel has been on the board of trustees since 2001.

Harpster, a 1994 graduate of Penn State, becomes one of the six agricultural representatives on the 32-member board charged with oversight of the state’s land grant university.

Harpster and Eckel defeated Paul Semmel, a former state lawmaker and dairy farmer from Lehigh County.

Harpster was the top vote-getter, with 135 votes in the convention-like setting. Eckel placed second with 110, and Semmel trailed with 82.

The other sitting agricultural trustee up for election this year, Sam Hayes, a former state Agriculture Secretary under Govs. Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker, opted against seeking a new term on the board this year.

Farm delegates interviewed today said that they were more concerned with which candidates can be most effective in finding funding for and maintaining strong ag research and county extension programs at Penn State.

“We’re not really looking at that,” Dick McElhaney, a beef cattle farmer from Beaver County, said of the board’s actions in response to the Sandusky crisis.

Still, it wan’t completely absent from the discussion.

Voters knew that Semmel had taken a clear stance in favor of challenges to the NCAA sanctions against the Penn State football program, and Eckel was a part of the board majority focused on taking responsibility and moving on.

Harpster had been muted on the issue in his public statements.

In the end, however, even voters who said they were angered by the board’s firing of Joe Paterno after Sandusky’s November 2011 arrest and other actions since then said they felt Eckel’s strong service over 12 years outweighed that vote.

That likely proved to be an important incumbent’s edge for Eckel today, who has worked or years on farm issues with many of the delegates who participated in this vote.

“He’s been a very strong advocate for years” for the farm community, explained Dave Park, a Jefferson County grain farmer who said he wouldn’t support the return of all board incumbents but is comfortable with Eckel.

The results of the election for three alumni seats will be announced Friday at the regularly-scheduled board of trustees meeting.

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